Sparks Count on a Lift From Some New Faces
When a team has been as successful as the Sparks, who have finished with the best record in the Western Conference five times, won the conference finals three times and the WNBA championship two times, change is not easy.
But since Los Angeles lost to Sacramento in last season’s playoffs, team President Johnny Buss has performed an almost-complete makeover.
It started with the office staff. Next, he and General Manager Penny Toler engineered the league’s biggest off-season trade, swapping DeLisha Milton-Jones and the Sparks’ 2005 first-round draft pick for Washington’s Chamique Holdsclaw.
Last but not least, former USC men’s coach Henry Bibby was hired to guide the team.
So far, Buss likes what he sees.
“There seems to be a lot of energy that’s been resurged into our system here,” Buss said. “We’re taking this year extra seriously. It was a rebuilding process, and we’re trying to rebuild from the inside out.”
That first-round playoff exit -- after the Sparks compiled the WNBA’s best regular-season record, 25-9 -- helped Buss make up his mind. And bringing in Bibby, a disciplinarian, would shake the Sparks out of whatever comfort zone they occupied.
Lisa Leslie, the reigning league most valuable player and defensive player of the year, could see that a shake-up was imminent.
“I felt, at times ... our players did not practice hard enough every single day and come to work, and then expected to win in the end,” Leslie said. “I don’t think you can just turn it on and turn it off. How you practice is pretty much how you play.”
Along with learning a new offense in training camp, the Sparks have been working hard on defense, where they ranked 10th out of 13 teams last season in points given up a game (69.4).
New assistant Shelley Patterson, a scout and assistant for Phoenix last season, said the Sparks’ defensive liabilities were known throughout the WNBA.
“The first step is to be better one-on-one defenders,” Patterson said. “Be better at containing your player, not having to always look for help in the frontcourt ... and getting them into foul trouble.”
The veteran core of returning starters -- Leslie, Tamecka Dixon, Mwadi Mabika and Nikki Teasley -- has been open to the changes, perhaps knowing that their time as a unit is growing shorter.
“If we stay together, I think we have two to three good runs left in us,” Dixon said. “With the new players that have come in with the older players, I think we have a great chance to do something special.”
Said Leslie: “I’ve seen that this team is not as young as it used to be, not as quick, and that will be our biggest adjustment. Can we replace our quickness and young talents with being smarter? Can we outsmart other teams? I think that’s where we are now.”
The longtime Sparks aren’t the only ones feeling urgency. Linda Whitmore, who came over from New York last season, and Holdsclaw, who takes Milton’s place in the starting lineup, are trying to win their first WNBA championship.
“I’m on a mission to get me a ring,” Whitmore said.
“I’ve played for it four times and haven’t gotten it yet. And it’s time.”
Said Holdsclaw, who sat out half of last season while battling depression: “I almost wasn’t going play basketball this season. But I came here to win a championship. And when we’re winning, everybody’s happy.”
Not everything has gone as planned.
Mabika could sit out the first month of the season because of a cartilage tear in her right knee. She was scheduled to undergo arthroscopic surgery this week.
Christi Thomas, a pleasant surprise last year as a rookie, has been hampered by a sore right ankle that was surgically repaired in November.
And Italian League veterans Laura Macchi and Raffaella Masciadri, who also made favorable rookie impressions, have yet to join the team because of their overseas obligations.
No matter, Bibby, whose previous professional coaching stops were in the Continental Basketball Assn. and the U.S. Basketball League, is ready to go. After being fired by USC four games into the 2004-05 college season, Bibby is grateful for a chance to be back on a bench.
“The first question I asked when I got here in front of the team, I asked Lisa Leslie to tell the team what you know about me,” Bibby said. And she said, ‘You really want me to tell them?’ I said, ‘Absolutely. I want you to tell people what you’ve heard.’ And I knew what she would say: Tough, firm, make people work hard, creative. But that’s my goal, to push you to be the best basketball player you can be.
“Nothing’s changed, I’m just in a new arena.”
Actually, just about everything has changed.
